Sunday, March 16, 2014

Friends and Fairyland

This past week we had another set of friends visiting us in Alameda.  They are moving here from D.C. this transfer season and they stayed with us for the week of house hunting.  In the end, they found a great rental in Alameda.  It will be wonderful to have them so close, right in our town.  On Friday, we spent the day in San Francisco showing them around a little bit.  O stayed in school, and we had a nice grown-up day!

Lombard Street

Today we spent the day at Children's Fairyland in Oakland.  This was our first time there, and it was very charming and fun.  O was so excited and thoroughly enjoyed his day.  

Flying monkey!

C'mon, put 'em up, put 'em up.....

The park is mostly play areas themed after children's stories, but there are a few rides.  The train was closed for repairs today, but that just gave us a reason to go back.


Sliding down Jack and Jill Hill.
His favorite parts were the boat play areas.  He definitely gravitated towards the helm on each of them!



Crooked House.

There was a mini ferris wheel.  I was not sure how he would do, but O really liked it.  He went back twice for another ride.


 After spending a few hours at Fairyland, we walked through the botanical garden and bonsai garden nearby.  That is definitely a place I would like to explore more.  It is amazing what a beautiful garden there is right in the middle of Oakland.  Tom and O had been to the garden once before, so we did a comparison picture...

Today

June, 2012


It was a fun day!  The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the park was not crowded, perfect!

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Joe!

We got to see Joe this weekend. He is in the area for a school up in Petaluma, and he came down for the weekend. Today, we went for a hike on Mount Tamalpais. The goal was to stop a place called The Tourist Club for a beverage at the turnaround point. Unfortunately, they were closed for their annual maintenance day today.



We had a great hike though.  O did the full 2.5 miles all himself, and even enjoyed it!  Our reward at the end was a late lunch at a delicious Puerto Rican restaurant in San Rafael before returning Joe to the cows and turkeys in Petaluma.